Spring 2016 Scholarship Celebration - NYC

April 5, 2016

Celebrating Penn’s progress in providing college access, President Amy Gutmann welcomed a crowd of nearly 600 alumni, students, and friends at the Spring 2016 Scholarship Celebration in New York. Dr. Gutmann hosted the celebration for named scholarship recipients together with the donors committed to helping to make their education at Penn possible. The evening featured two student speakers, Hannah, C’16, and Javier, C’16, who reflected on how receiving named scholarships have enabled them to pursue their dreams at Penn, and inspired their commitment to impacting the world through providing educational access to those in need. Penn intends to expand the impact of its exceptional all-grant financial aid program by raising an additional $240 million by 2020, and Dr. Gutmann provided more proof of how that impact is being experienced already. A first generation college student herself, Dr. Gutmann, is committed to seeing Penn admit the most diverse classes under her leadership. This year, 12% of Penn’s freshman class will be the first in their family to graduate from college. They are students like Javier, C’16, who is a first generation student and a Benjamin Franklin Scholar who remarked that, “Having the access to a Penn education is an incredible act of humility from you, donors, friends, family. I want you to realize that you form part of a larger human effort trying to better our world efforts to increase access to education are helping bridge some of the greatest inequalities in our society.”

Photographer Ben Evans